Brrm Brrm - Blokes' cars​Stories of our first vehicles

Indicative photos only, sourced from web, so some might not accurately represent the model

GARY BALLINGER:1938 Morris 8 bought as half shares with my mother while I was 16 and still at school and I parked it in the school yard alongside my three mates 1927 Austin 7s.

​Then I bought a Honda 90cc motorcycle which lasted about six months as every time I travelled the 320km between Blenheim and Christchurch University it rained. So I bought a 1959 Morris Mini 848cc, chassis number in the 1000s. It was white with two large black racing stripes down the bonnet. It was a great car for the girls and my future wife and I loved driving it, FAST, well as fast as it could go! This started my love affair with her, and motorsport.

WARREN BROOKS:1952 Austin Healy. The good and the bad with it, though. In Warren’s last year of school he dabbled in the stock market and made a $1000 killing, and so he bought the Austin Healy.​However, within six months someone stole it, and he had no insurance.

JOHN CHIRIO: 1964 Holden Ute John bought this to replace a motorbike he had trouble staying on. It had a 186 cui motor and limited-slip diff. Thus he found it great to hoon in, sliding around corners and drifting in the main streets of Mt Isa. But after having to pay for a few sets of new tyres he slowed down. He eventually drove it to Sydney and traded it in for a Subaru GSR Sports.

GEORGE KARSAI: 1962 Holden EJ This was a hand me down from his dad. It had hydromatic gears with a column shift and was famous for two aspects. His was the first car in his group of friends, and probably as such, they were able to cram 17 people into it, one steering, another on accelerator and another on brakes! They gate crashed from party to party like this. He had two accidents within 15 minutes in this car. First he was hit in the front by a red-light runner. After giving the police his statements, they continued but the car started overheating and so he decided to pull into a servo to take on radiator water. However, at the servo the guy in front reversed violently into the front of him and caused even more damage, all at the second person’s expense in the end.

MIKE NARBY: 1954 Mark 1 Zephyr Mike bought this from a friend, even though he was advised not to as it had been used as an off-road racer. At 50 mph it shuddered and crabbed along the road. As it was going to be too expensive to repair all the faults, especially the suspension and steering, Mike sold it and bought a 1948 Ford Prefect.

MICHAEL REES:1966 Singer Chamois Mark 2 Thi, Michael said, was a glorified Hillman Imp, 875cc with walnut interior fascias. He received it new for his 21st birthday and it was worth 500 pounds. Michael kept it for five years and used it to commute to work at Lucas Industries in the UK.

His job there was to fire up their early model computer, a one hour process. This led to Michael’s long-time love of computing in work and leisure.

TOM SNELLING:1952 Ford Prefect It had a crank handle and cable brakes and the front brakes did not work anyway. This resulted in his current driving style which is to leave plenty of room between him and the cars in front, particularly those stopped at intersections. Tom had this for 18 months before it crashed and was destroyed as he could not stop in time to avoid queued cars or shop canopy supports, which he hit hard.

BARRY WOODBERRY: 1948 Vanguard As he joined the Australian Army as a cadet when very young, the Army became his legal guardian and as such he was not allowed to own a car. However, early on, Barry and two mates - none with licences! - bought a Vanguard for 30 Pounds. They did not do any checks on it but it did have enough petrol to get them back to base. They decided to park it in bushes next to the Army Camp, along with other cars also in the bushes.

​However as they were parking it the MPs turned up, put them all in the paddy wagon and then lock-up overnight. The Base Commander gave him a severe reprimand and one mate was charged as he had been a bad boy previously and one other got off. The army technicians examined the car and it was full of rust, so it became a restoration project for their apprentice mechanics!

IAN BEGAUD 1932 Triumph This was nicknamed “constipation” as it never had enough guts to get past other vehicles, or even up hills. Ian replaced it with a 1928 Model A Tourer but this needed brakes to be adjusted weekly, and they only worked on the rear anyway. At one time a cop put his arm up to get Ian to stop but he ended up sailing past as he could not stop. He was never caught for this.

DEREK CAMPBELLMark 1 Zephyr Derek bought the car in Sydney and then drove it home to Ballina, with no license as you seemed to do in those days. After six months, Derek applied for a driver’s licence, and the cop said, “Oh, I know you, I have seen you driving around for a while” and then issued Derek his licence on the spot, no tests! Derek eventually wrote it off by driving into a tree. Then he had a Mini Cooper, which went into a railway bridge, then a VW which was hit by a semi-trailer, then an EK Holden which was hit by another truck, then.

PETER HERON: 1962 Holden EJ His daughter was very pleased with this car as she was conceived in it!

However, it eventually broke down and it Peter decided it was more economical to buy a new Holden instead or repairing it.

IAN McDOUGALL: We were a Holden family of sorts but my first car was a 1934 Ford V8 wooden-trayed utility - an Aussie innovation that became the basis for all future utes. A mate and I found it in great nick in a rubber-vine covered shed in the gold mining town of Ravenswod, NQ: inland so only slight tinge of surface rust. We never got to take possession as the owner - after taking our $20 - got a better offer and was sold before we could collect it!!!

Then came a FJ Holden sedan: good body, mechanically well, dormant, as it had been pillaged for parts by a speedway racer. I am not a mechanically-minded or abled person: it sat in the front yard untouched, unused and covered in flying fox shite for about a year until dad got sick of it and sold it!

Third and first working car was a 1951 Morris soft-top convertible, not renowned for handling wet weather which was a bugger in tropical North Queensland, eh - stalled often. However, my mate and I got (sort of) more chicks than the utes and grunt car lads doing lappies in main drag because they thought the car was cute and they could just jump into the back seat then stand up and do the hair-flowing, hand-waving thing. But they got bored with it after a lap or two then jumped out and drooled over the muscle boys in their muscle cars ... SIGH!!

VINCE PAINO: FJ Holden Vince bought this for $1, as a project to complete and get running. However, after a time with no progress, his father got so annoyed with it sitting on the lawn that he got it towed away, for $20.

PAUL SANTON: Chrysler Valiant Paul arrived in Australia from Italy to work at Port Kembla. Within three months he had a girlfriend and thus needed transport, so he bought this Valiant. However, the next day it would not go so Paul took it back to the car yard and had it replaced with a Hillman Hunter. When it needed a clean he took it to an automated car wash, stayed in the car and got drenched as it leaked like a sieve.

JOHN TWENTYMAN: 1933 Plymouth John with two mates all aged 15, chipped in five pounds each to buy this 15 pound car. It had no keys/ tarter so they had to hot wire it. It also had no rear window but did have wooden-spoked wheels. John and one mate lived on hillsides and the third mate lived on the flat, thus the third mate never got to take the car home at nights.​They always liked to have the backseat filled with girls, so they could help push start it. One time, at the bottom of a hill the car got two flat tyres.

​Eventually it broke an oil line so they parked it at the side of the road and left it. It was still there six months later.

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